ch. 9 bio

Which of the following is an example of a female mating with a male only after submitting him to a courtship ritual?

A female bowerbird will mate with a male only after inspecting the small thatched structure he has built for her.

Mate guarding is a reproductive tactic that functions to:

Reduce paternity uncertainty.

Why is the goose rolling a beer can back to her nest?

She's exhibiting a fixed action pattern that directs her to retrieve any item that even vaguely resembles an egg

When scientists displace an adult female Belding's ground squirrel to a new group for an experiment, she still risks her life alarm calling although she is not saving any of her kin. Why does this behavior still persist now that it is harmful to her fitness?

The ground squirrel is acting on instinct and still calls because she possesses no instincts suited to this evolutionary novel situation.

When a goose spots an egg outside of its nest, the goose gets out of the nest and rolls the egg back. Once started, a goose continues the egg-retrieval movement all the way back to the nest, even if the egg is taken away during the process. This is called:

a fixed action pattern

Which of the following is a goose MOST LIKELY to retrieve first if found just outside her nest?

a model egg that is larger than any other object near the nest

From an evolutionary perspective, behavior can be viewed best as:

a trait that can satisfy the three conditions required for evolution by natural selection

Polygynous species:

are usually sexually dimorphic, with females larger and more highly ornamented.

Incest avoidance evolved in humans:

because breeding among close relatives leads to a higher proportion of offspring with genetic defects and, consequently, reduced fitness

Monogamy, a relatively rare system outside of birds, evolves when:

both males and females have high and equal parental investment.

In black widow spider mating, the male _____________________ and the female _____________________.

breaks off his sexual organ inside the female; kills and eats the male

Kin selection theory would lead us to predict that:

children in stepfamilies are injured more frequently than those living with their biological families

Altruistic behavior in animals may be a result of kin selection, a theory maintaining that:

genes are more likely to persist within a population when they cause behaviors that assist other animals who share those genes.

Acoustical communication includes all of the following EXCEPT:

honey bee waggle dance

Which of the following best illustrates an instinctive behavior in cats?

hunting and killing

Although beneficial, group living also has many costs. Which of the follow is NOT a cost to an individual of living in a group?

increased opportunity for reciprocal altruism

Behaviors that do not require environmental input for their development are called:

instincts

An honest signal:

is a signal, given when both the signaler and responder have the same interests, that cannot be faked.

Most apparent acts of altruism in the animal kingdom have proved, on closer inspection, to be not truly altruistic. Instead, they have evolved as a consequence of either _______________ or ________________.

kin selection; reciprocal altruism

Polygamy and monogamy are two types of:

mating systems

An optimal strategy for an animal in procuring food would involve all of the following EXCEPT:

maximizing the size of each prey item

A single breeding male red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) may mate with several females, but each female usually mates with only one male. This type of mating system is known as:

monogamy

The sex with the greater energetic investment in reproduction will be _____________ when it comes to mating

more discriminating

Exclusive male parental care is much more prevalent in fish than in mammals because

most fish reproduce by external fertilization while most mammals do not.

In a polygynous mating system:

multiple females tend to mate with the same male.

In a polyandrous mating system

multiple males tend to mate with the same female

In amphibians, it is generally the case that

neither the female nor the male invest much energy in the care of offspring

Molecules released by an individual into the environment that trigger behavioral responses in other individuals are called:

pheromones

In a species such as elephant seals, in which males are significantly larger than females, the most likely mating system is:

polygyny

Two types of polygamy are:

polygyny and polyandry

Behaviors that are learned easily and by all (or nearly all) individuals in a species are called:

prepared learning

When the female silkworm moth is ready to mate, she:

releases a potent chemical into the air

The energy that a parent puts into the growth, feeding, and care of offspring is called:

reproductive investment

Kin selection is defined as:

selection for a behavior that lowers an individual's own chances of survival or reproduction, but raises those of a relative.

When the sexes of a species differ in size or appearance, it is called:

sexual dimorphism

Biologist W. D. Hamilton stated that the more closely related two individuals are:

the more likely they are to act altruistically towards each other.

The more asymmetric the parental investment is between the sexes:

the more radical we expect the sexual dimorphism to be, both physically and behaviorally.

An animal will preferentially feed on:

the prey that provides the most energy relative to effort

If two alleles exist at the same gene locus in a population, one for a selfish behavior and one for a selfless behavior, regardless of the initial frequencies, over time:

the selfish behavior allele will increase its percentage in the population to near fixation.

Cross-cultural studies are important in studying behavioral biology because:

they allow us to evaluate the hereditary component of behaviors by revealing behaviors that persist throughout different cultures.

What is the ultimate explanation for modern human preference for fatty foods?

Ancestral humans who preferred fatty foods were less likely to starve, leaving more offspring in the next generation.

In general, which of the following is the best way to distinguish males from females?

Males produce motile gametes.

Usually the female is more discriminating than the male when it comes to mating. However, in bush crickets, the opposite is the case. Why is this?

The male contributes a massive amount of energy to the female during mating—his ejaculate makes up about onefourth of his body weight

_____________ is an action or signal on the part of one organism that alters the behavior of another organism

communication

Which of the following is NOT a topic in animal behavior?

courtship and mate choice

In birds, after fertilization but prior to the emergence of the chicks, the development of the fertilized egg is:

external

Arguments that a morphological characteristic or behavior has evolved because it benefits the species or population are arguments for:

group selection

Because it is possible for a female to mate with multiple males, any of whom could be the father, male mammals and birds always:

have some degree of paternity uncertainty

When a male fish defends his nest:

he increases the percentage of eggs in the nest that he will fertilize

When individuals of any species find themselves in an environment that differs from the environment to which they are evolutionarily adapted, we observe that

they engage in behaviors better fit to the environment the species evolved in than the environment the individual organisms find themselves in

The waggle dance is

used for food location in honeybees

Before exposure to the fear of snakes, a captive monkey:

will reach over a plastic snake for food.

VAMPIRE bats:

will sometimes regurgitate blood into the mouth of an unrelated bat that is close to starving